2021 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

 

Courtesy of Jen Campbell

Are you ready to explore the world with another round of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks?  The goal is simple - read 52 books. How you get there is up to you.  I'm in a follow my muse, clocks and corsets, dragon flying, explore the magical and mystical as well as the historical,  swashbuckling, take me out of this world mood.   What are you in the mood for? Whether you read fiction or nonfiction, like to spread your reading wings and read outside your comfort zone or stick with the tried and true, join me aboard The Roving Pum Deg Dau o Lygrau airship for a fun filled reading adventure.  

We have three new challenges to tease your reading palates in 2021.  An updated 52 Books Bingo with 20 bonus squares that will take us deep underground to the outer edges of space.  The Daughters of Mnemosyne  will fill us with creativity, wisdom and insight, and last but not least, the Fictional Librarians Bookology, will lead us to our author of the month and spelling challenge. 

We also have a variety of weekly, monthly mini challenges and perpetual challenges  including: 

Well Educated Mind --  Continue to explore the classics in 6 categories: Fiction, Autobiography, History/Politics, Drama, Poetry and Science. 

Agatha Christie  --  read at least three of her books per year.  Read the books in chronological order as listed, group by detective or collection, or randomly if you choose. 

Brit Tripping --- A year long mystery read traveling the Roman Roads through England reading reading a book from each of the 45 counties with a few extra trips to London. 

Plus Alphabet Soup, Dusty and Chunky, Feed Your Muse, Mind Voyages, Nobel Prize Winners and Sounds of Silence.

The mini and perpetual challenges are all optional, Mix them up anyway you like or follow your own path in the quest to read.  

• The challenge runs January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021 
• Our book weeks begin on Sunday
• Week one begins Friday, January 1st and ends Saturday January 9th. 
• Participants may join at any time. 
• All books are acceptable except children books.** 
• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2021
• Books may overlap other challenges. 
• If you have an blog, create an entry post linking to this blog. 
• Sign up in the "I'm participating post" in the sidebar
• If you don't have a blog or social media account, post about your reads in the comments section of each weekly post. 
• The link widget will be added to the bottom of each weekly post to link to reviews of your reads. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

2020 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Welcome to the 2020 

Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks 

Challenge

Also home to 

Well Educated Mind, Agatha Christie, Mind Voyages, 

Sounds of Silence, Brit Trip perpetual challenges 

as well as 52 Books Bingo and Ladies of Fiction Bookology 

The rules are very simple 

• The challenge will run from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 
• Our book weeks will begin on Sunday
• Week one will begin on Wednesday, January 1 and run through January 11. 
• Participants may join at any time. 
• All books are acceptable except children books.** 
• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2020
• Books may overlap other challenges. 
• If you have an blog, create an entry post linking to this blog. 
• Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" in the sidebar
• If you don't have a blog or any social media account, post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post. 
• Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the each weekly post for you to link to reviews of your reads. The link widget closes at the end of each book week

The goal is to read 52 books. How you get there is up to you. All the challenges are optional. Mix it up anyway you like. 



**in reference to children books. If a child is reading the book and involved in the challenge, then that's okay. If an adult is doing read aloud with kids, the book should be geared for the 9 - 12 age group and over 100 pages. If you are an adult reading for your own enjoyment, a good rule of thumb to use:  "is there some complexity to the story or is it too simple?" If it's too simple, then it doesn't count.

2020 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, 

leading out into the expanding universe.” Madeleine L’Engle

Are you ready for another Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks adventure?  The goal is quite simple and how you get there is up to you.  Where would you like your bookish travels to take you this year?  What are you in the mood for?  I'm in the mood for a something mindful or mysterious or magical, mayhap even mind boggling or masterful, even a bit mundane.  How about you?   Whether you read fiction or nonfiction, like to explore outside your comfort zone with new to you authors or genres,  or love to read the same books over again or stick to the tried and true, then this is the place for you.  

There are two updated challenges to tease your reading palate:  2020 52 Books Bingo with 20 bonus squares to celebrate the beginning of a new decade, and Ladies of Fiction Bookology, our author of the month and spelling challenge.  

We also have a variety of weekly, monthly mini challenges and perpetual challenges  including: 

Well Educated Mind --  Continue to explore the classics in 6 categories: Fiction, Autobiography, History/Politics, Drama, Poetry and Science. 

Agatha Christie  --  read at least three of her books per year.  Read the books in chronological order as listed, group by detective or collection, or randomly if you choose. 

Brit Tripping --- A year long mystery read traveling the Roman Roads through England reading reading a book from each of the 45 counties with a few extra trips to London. 

Plus Sounds of Silence, Mind Voyages, A to Z, Dusty and Chunky, and Feed Your Muse. 

The mini and perpetual challenges are all optional, Mix them up anyway you like or follow your own path in the quest to read.  

• The challenge will run from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 
• Our book weeks begin on Sunday
• Week one begins Wednesday, January 1 and run through January 11. 
• Participants may join at any time. 
• All books are acceptable except children books.** 
• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2020
• Books may overlap other challenges. 
• If you have an blog, create an entry post linking to this blog. 
• Sign up in the "I'm participating post" in the sidebar
• If you don't have a blog or social media account, post about your reads in the comments section of each weekly post. 
• The link widget will be added to the bottom of each weekly post for you to link to reviews of your reads. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

2019 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Are you ready for another round of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks?   Our reading quest began ten years ago and during that period of time,  our armchair travels have taken us all over the world and back again.  This year we are going to ramble and rove around the globe, following multiple rabbit trails. Whether you are a fan of fiction or nonfiction, like to juggle multiple books at once, love to reread favorite authors over and over, explore different genres, new to you authors, or stick to the tried and true, this is the place for you.   The rules are very simple. The goal is to read 52 books. How you get there is up to you.  

We have a variety of challenges including a new 52 Books Bingo as well as A to Z, Chunky, Dusty and Feed Your Muse to assist us in our reading adventures.  

Whodunit Bookology Spelling and author of the month --  Follow in the footsteps of Agatha Christie and her charming detective Hercule Poirot as well as variety of  bookish detectives, sleuths, and private eyes.

Brit Tripping --- A year long mystery read traveling the Roman Roads through England reading reading a book from each of the 45 counties with a few extra trips to London.  (Perpetual)

Agatha Christie  --  read at least three of her books per year.  Read the books in chronological order as listed, group by detective or collection, or randomly if you choose. (Perpetual)

Well Educated Mind --  Continue to explore the classics in 6 categories: Fiction, Autobiography, History/Politics, Drama, Poetry and Science. (Perpetual)

Since it is our Tenth Anniversary, there will be a variety of Ten themed mini challenges throughout the year.  

The mini, weekly and monthly challenges are all optional, Mix them up anyway you like or follow your own path in the quest to read.  

• The challenge will run from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019. 
• Our book weeks will begin on Sunday
• Week one will begin on Tuesday, January 1st. 
• Participants may join at any time. 
• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2019 
• Books may overlap other challenges. 
• If you have an blog, create an entry post linking to this blog. 
• Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" in the sidebar
• You don't have a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post. 
• Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the each weekly post for you to link to reviews of your reads. 

2018 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge

Welcome to the 2018 

Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge

Also the home of Well Educated Mind, 52 Books Bingo, Blossom
Bookology, Mind Voyages, Dusty and Chunky, and various mini challenges. 

The rules are very simple and the goal - read 52 books.

• The challenge will run from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018. 
• Our book weeks will begin on Sunday
• Week one will begin on Monday, January 1st. 
• Participants may join at any time. 
• All books are acceptable except children books.** 
• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2018 
• Books may overlap other challenges. 
• Create an entry post linking to this blog. 
• Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" in the sidebar
• You don't have a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post. 
• Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the each weekly post for you to link to reviews of your reads. 

All the mini challenges are optional. Mix it up anyway you like. The goal is to read 52 books. How you get there is up to you.




**in reference to children books. If it is a child whose reading it and involved in the challenge, then that's okay. If an adult is doing read aloud with kids, the book should be geared for the 9 - 12 age group and above and over 100 pages. If adult reading for own enjoyment, then a good rule of thumb to go by "is there some complexity to the story or is it too simple?" If it's too simple, then doesn't count.

BW1: Welcome to an Adventurous Prime Reading New Year

Jonathan Wolstenholme The Complete Journey

Happy new year and welcome to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks. Greetings to all who are joining me for another round or jumping in for the first time for a bookish adventure.

Are you ready to go spelunking around the world?   We are going to search for hidden book gems as we excavate for new as well as old reads. Have fun and delve into one book at a time or scoop up multiple books, burrow in with a classic, dig into a chunky read or shine up one of those dusty books from your shelves.   

The rules are quite simple. Read 52 Books. That's it. How you get there is up to you. To aid us in our reading adventures, we have several optional challenges which are listed in the link bar above:  Dusty and/or Chunky,  another round of 52 Books Bingo, our perpetual Well Educated Mind challenge as well as a new year long challenge, the Birthstone Bookology Reading Adventure.   The birthstones  and authors of the month are listed above in the Monthly Themes and Readalongs. Plus I'll introduce various mini challenges throughout the year to tickle your reading taste buds. As always, you may choose to travel along with me or follow your own path.  

In February, we will begin a year long read of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory.   One of those books which will most certainly lead to many rabbit trails.  

Our Birthstone Bookology Reading Adventure begins in the times of the ancients.  Here's your chance to read a book set in Ancients through 100AD and check off one bingo square. :)  According to historians, the gemstones represented the twelve tribes of Israel up until the writings of Flavius Josephus in 1AD  and St Jerome in 5AD connected the 12 stones with the 12 signs of the zodiac.  It wasn't until the 18th Century in Poland when people began to wear the stone linked to their birth month. The National Association of Jewelers defined the modern list we are all familiar with in 1912.  

The birthstone of the month is Garnet.  You may choose to spell out the word, reading one book per letter or read a book with the name or the colors of the stone in the title.  Or perhaps find an author whose name is Garnet.  You may decide to find a book set in the time period where the birthstone was discovered or surrounding the myth and lore or set in countries where the birthstone is currently found.  Follow rabbit trails of thought and see where they take you.  The possibilities are limitless.

I plan to start the new year with Ben Kane's historical  Spartacus: The Gladiator.  Besides having a G in the title, it is also set in Roman times during 1st century BC.  I highly recommend his Forgotten Legion Trilogy which is excellent. 

Our author of the month is Haruki Murakami, a fan favorite whom we have started out with each year.   I'll talk more about him next week since his birthday is January 12th. Join in on a readalong of Norwegian Wood or choose one of his other books if you've already read it.

Cheers to a wonderful, adventurous, reading new year! 

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For the first week, link to your I'm participating post, reading plans or to your most current review. Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up  Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

2017 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Courtesy of Lauren Conrad 

Are you ready to join me for another round of reading 52 Books in 52 Weeks?  The rules are quite simple and how you get there is entirely up to you.  It's going to be a gem of a year as we excavate for new as well as old reads.  Whether you like unearthing one book at a time or scooping up multiple books, burrowing in with a classic, digging into a chunky read or shining up one of those dusty books from your shelves, it all averages out in the end.  The goal is to read 52 Books. 

In the past few years, we've been across and around the world by foot, car, train, plane and sea.  To aid us in our journey this year, we'll be digging deep to discover the jewels of our reading world.  We have a variety of challenges to assist with our reading voyage this year including another round of 52 Books Bingo. 

Birthstone Bookology Reading adventure which will take us around the world and through different time periods from the ancients to the present.   You can go a variety of directions with this challenge. Read a book for each letter in the birthstone of the month.  Read a book with the birthstone or the color of the birthstone in the title. Find a book set in the time period or setting where the birthstone was discovered and/or mined.    

Dusty Mini challenge: Limit buying new books for 1 - 4 months and/or read 4 to 12 or more books gathering dust on your shelves prior to 2016.

Chunky Mini Challenge -  books more than 500 pages.

Well Educated Mind:  Continuing exploring the classics in 6 categories: Fiction, Autobiography, History/Politics, Drama, Poetry and Science.  

Plus we'll be doing a year long readalong of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of Western Science as well as another round of 52 Books Bingo.  

The mini, weekly and monthly challenges are optional, Mix it up anyway you like.

So put on your hard hats, grab your shovels and pickaxes and get ready to explore.   

1. The challenge will run from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017. 
2. Our book weeks begin on Sunday. 
3. Participants may join at any time. 
4. All books are acceptable except children books. 
5. All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
6. Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2017. 
7. Books may overlap other challenges. 
8. Create an entry post linking to this blog. 
9. Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" below this post. 
10. You don't need a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post. 
11. Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the weekly post to link to reviews of your most current reads.

2016 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Are you ready to join me for another year of Reading 52 Books in 52 Weeks? The rules are quite simple. How you get there is up to you.  Whether you are a monogamous reader or like to dip into multiple books at a time, love diving into chunky books or sailing along with a beach read, submerging yourself in a classic or weighing anchor with those dusty books gathering dust on your shelves, it all averages out in the end.  The goal is to read 52 Books.  

We're going to sail around the world this year, starting off East of the Prime Meridian for the first half of the year, criss-crossing the oceans and seas, visiting various ports of call.  We have several author readalongs planned for the year from E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, to Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, to Dante's Paradiso as well as revisiting Moby Dick and various adaptations of the story both fiction and non fiction.   We'll continue with Susan Wise Bauer's History series with our year long read of History of the Renaissance World.    Check out Monthly Themes and Readalong  for more information

There are several mini challenges to help amp up the fun, explore new authors and genres and spread your reading sails.

A to Z Challenge:  Challenge yourself to read books alphabetically by Title and/or by Author or both. Have fun searching out those difficult letters.

Dusty Mini challenge: Limit buying new books for 1 - 4 months and/or read 4 to 12 or more books gathering dust on your shelves prior to 2016.

Chunky Mini Challenge -  books more than 500 pages.

Well Educated Mind:  Continuing exploring the classics in 5 categories: Fiction, Autobiography, History/Politics, Drama and Poetry.  Susan Wise Bauer's 2015 revised version includes a new category of Science to explore.

All the challenges and readalongs are optional. Mix it up anyway you like.

1. The challenge will run from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016. 
2. Our book weeks begin on Sunday. 
3. Participants may join at any time. 
4. All books are acceptable except children books. 
5. All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
6. Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2016.. 
7. Books may overlap other challenges. 
8. Create an entry post linking to this blog. 
9. Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" below this post. 
10. You don't need a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post. 
11. Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the weekly post to link to reviews of your most current reads.

Happy Reading! 

BW36: Native Son by Richard Wright

The 22nd  novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is The Native Son by Richard Wright.  Written in 1940, The Native Son is  set in 1930's and tells the story of  a 20 year old poor black man, Bigger Thomas, who kills a young white girl.  Wright was determined to portray racism in its grittiest form and his book shocked both the White and African American communities when it was released. 

Amazon Review: 


Bigger Thomas is doomed, trapped in a downward spiral that will lead to arrest, prison, or death, driven by despair, frustration, poverty, and incomprehension. As a young black man in the Chicago of the '30s, he has no way out of the walls of poverty and racism that surround him, and after he murders a young white woman in a moment of panic, these walls begin to close in. There is no help for him--not from his hapless family; not from liberal do-gooders or from his well-meaning yet naive friend Jan; certainly not from the police, prosecutors, or judges. Bigger is debased, aggressive, dangerous, and a violent criminal. As such, he has no claim upon our compassion or sympathy. And yet...

A more compelling story than Native Son has not been written in the 20th century by an American writer. That is not to say that Richard Wright created a novel free of flaws, but that he wrote the first novel that successfully told the most painful and unvarnished truth about American social and class relations. As Irving Howe asserted in 1963, "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. It made impossible a repetition of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."
Other books had focused on the experience of growing up black in America--including Wright's own highly successful Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of five stories that focused on the victimization of blacks who transgressed the code of racial segregation. But they suffered from what he saw as a kind of lyrical idealism, setting up sympathetic black characters in oppressive situations and evoking the reader's pity. In Native Son, Wright was aiming at something more. In Bigger, he created a character so damaged by racism and poverty, with dreams so perverted, and with human sensibilities so eroded, that he has no claim on the reader's compassion:

"I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill! I must have felt it awful hard to murder.... What I killed for must've been good!" Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something... I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. It's the truth..."

Wright's genius was that, in preventing us from feeling pity for Bigger, he forced us to confront the hopelessness, misery, and injustice of the society that gave birth to him. --Andrew Himes

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 Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.   

BW27: The Trial by Franz Kafka

The 21st novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is The Trial by  Franz Kafka. Kafka started working on The Trial in 1914 and the book didn't get published until after his death in 1925.  Before he died in 1924, he bequested all his papers and unfinished stories to his best friend and translator, Max Brod and requested all his unpublished works be destroyed.  Brod ignored his wishes and went on to publish The Trial in 1925, The Castle in 1926, Amerika in 1927 and The Great Wall of China in 1931.   The Trial was never completed but the last chapter does bring the story to a close.  


Synopsis:  A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis--an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life--including work at a bank and his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door--becomes increasingly unpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating downward spiral.

Chapter One:

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach's cook - Mrs. Grubach was his landlady - but today she didn't come. That had never happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and disconcerted, rang the bell. 

There was immediately a knock at the door and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting, with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it very clear what they were actually for. 

 "Who are you?" asked K., sitting half upright in his bed. 

The man, however, ignored the question as if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, "You rang?" 

"Anna should have brought me my breakfast," said K. 

 He tried to work out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through observation and by thinking about it, but the man didn't stay still to be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately behind it, "He wants Anna to bring him his breakfast." 

There was a little laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the sound of it whether there were several people laughing. The strange man could not have learned anything from it that he hadn't known already, but now he said to K., as if making his report "It is not possible."

"It would be the first time that's happened," said K., as he jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his trousers. "I want to see who that is in the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be disturbed in this way." It immediately occurred to him that he needn't have said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have acknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didn't seem important to him at the time. 

That, at least, is how the stranger took it, as he said, "Don't you think you'd better stay where you are?" 

"I want neither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until you've introduced yourself." 

 "I meant it for your own good," said the stranger and opened the door, this time without being asked. 

The next room, which K. entered more slowly than he had intended, looked at first glance exactly the same as it had the previous evening. It was Mrs. Grubach's living room, over-filled with furniture, tablecloths, porcelain and photographs.

Continue reading here. 

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Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.   

BW22: Virginia Woolf and the art of Reading

I love this essay by Virginia Woolf and go back to it time and again.  Since # 20 in Susan Wise Bauer's list of great fiction in Well Educated Mind is Mrs. Dalloway, decided to reprise the essay once again. Also Brainpicking's has a wonderful article on how to read a book which also highlights Woolf's essay on  How to Read a Book which can be found in her book The Second Common Reader.  And don't forget to check out the preceding book - The Common Reader highlighting her essays on Defoe, Montaigne and Austen to name a few.

At this late hour of the world's history books are to be found in every room of the house - in the nursery, in the drawing room, in the dining room, in the kitchen. And in some houses they have collected so that they have to be accommodated with a room of their own. Novels, poems, histories, memoirs, valuable books in leather, cheap books in paper - one stops sometimes before them and asks in a transient amazement what is the pleasure I get, or the good I create, from passing my eyes up and down these innumerable lines of print? Reading is a very complex art - the hastiest examination of our sensations as a reader will show us that much. And our duties as readers are many and various. But perhaps it may be said that our first duty to a book is that one should read it for the first time as if one were writing it.

One should begin by sitting in the dock with the criminal, not by mounting the bench to sit among the Judges. One should be an accomplice with the writer in his act, whether good or bad, of creation. For each of these books, however it may differ in kind and quality, is an attempt to make something. And our first duty as readers is to try and understand what the writer is making from the first word with which he builds his first sentence to the last with which he ends his book. We must not impose our design upon him; we must not try to make him conform his will to ours. We must allow Defoe to be Defoe and Jane Austen to be Jane Austen as freely as we allow the tiger to have his fur and the tortoise to have his shell. And this is very difficult. For it is one of the qualities of greatness that it brings Heaven and earth and human nature into conformity with its own vision.

The great writers thus often require us to make heroic efforts in order to read them rightly. They bend us and break us. To go from Defoe to Jane Austen, from Hardy to Peacock, from Trollope to Meredith, from Richardson to Rudyard Kipling, is to be wrenched and distorted, to be thrown violently this way and that. And so, too, with the lesser writers. Each is singular; each has a view, a temperament, an experience of his own which may conflict with ours but must be allowed to express itself fully if we are to do him justice. And the writers who have most to give us often do most violence to our prejudices, particularly if they are our own contemporaries, so that we have need of all our imagination and understanding if we are to get the utmost that they can give us. But reading, as we have suggested, is a complex art. It does not merely consist in sympathizing and understanding. It consists, too, in criticizing and in judging.

The reader must leave the dock and mount the bench. He must cease to be the friend; he must become the judge. And this second process, which we may call the process of after-reading, for it is often done without the book before us, yields an even more solid pleasure than that which we receive when we are actually turning the pages. During the actual reading new impressions are always cancelling or completing the old. Delight, anger, boredom, laughter succeed each other incessantly as we read. Judgment is suspended, for we cannot know what may come next. But now the book is completed. It has taken a definite shape. And the book as a whole is different from the book received currently in several different parts. It has a shape, it has a being. And this shape, this being, can be held in the mind and compared with the shapes the essays of other books and given its own size and smallness by comparison with theirs.

But if this process of judging and deciding is full of pleasure it is also full of difficulty. Not much help can be looked for from outside. Critics and criticism abound, but it does not help us greatly to read the views of another mind when our own is still hot from a book that we have just read. It is after one has made up one's own opinion that the opinions of others are most illuminating. It is when we can defend our own judgment that we get most from the judgment of the great critics - the Johnsons, the Drydens and the Arnolds.

To make up our own minds we can best help ourselves first by realizing the impression that the book has left as fully and sharply as possible, and then by comparing this impression with the impressions that we have formulated in the past. There they hang in the wardrobe of the mind - the shapes of the books we have read, like clothes that we have taken off and hung up to wait their season. Thus, if we have just read, say, Clarissa Harlowe for the first time we take it and let it show itself against the shape that remains in our minds after reading Anna Karenina. We place them side by side and at once the outlines of the two books are cut out against each other as the angle of a house (to change the figure) is cut out against the fullness of the harvest moon. We contrast Richardson's prominent qualities with Tolstoi's.

 We contrast his indirectness and verbosity with Tolstoi's brevity and directness. We ask ourselves why it is that each writer has chosen so different an angle of approach. We compare the emotion that we felt at different crises of their books. We speculate as to the difference between the 18th century in England and the 19th century in Russia - but there is no end to the questions that at once suggest themselves as we place the books together. Thus by degrees, by asking questions and answering them, we find that we have decided that the book we have just read is of this kind or that, has this degree of merit or that, takes its station at this point or at that in the literature as a whole. And if we are good readers we thus judge not only the classics and the masterpieces of the dead, but we pay the living writers the compliment of comparing them as they should be compared with the pattern of the great books of the past.

Thus, then, when the moralists ask us what good we do by running our eyes over these many printed pages, we can reply that we are doing our part as readers to help masterpieces into the world. We are fulfilling our share of the creative task - we are stimulating, encouraging, rejecting, making our approval and disapproval felt; and are thus acting as a check and a spur upon the writer. That is one reason for reading books - we are helping to bring good books into the world and to make bad books impossible. But it is not the true reason. The true reason remains the inscrutable one - we get pleasure from reading. It is a complex pleasure and a difficult pleasure; it varies from age to age and from book to book. But that pleasure is enough.

Indeed that pleasure is so great that one cannot doubt that without it the world would be a far different and a far inferior place from what it is. Reading has changed the world and continues to change it. When the day of judgment comes therefore and all secrets are laid bare, we shall not be surprised to learn that the reason why we have grown from apes to men, and left our caves and dropped our bows and arrows and sat round the fire and talked and given to the poor and helped the sick - the reason why we have made shelter and society out of the wastes of the desert and the tangle of the jungle is simply this - we have loved reading.

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BW18: House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

 

The 18th novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.  The story was published in 1905, serialized first in Scribner's Magazine.  She wrote over 40 books in 40 years and was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer prize for fiction.


Chapter One



SELDEN PAUSED in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.

An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door, and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her skill to the test.

"Mr. Selden--what good luck!"

She came forward smiling,eager almost, in her resolve to intercept him. One or two persons, in brushing past them, lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the suburban traveller rushing to his last train.

Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years, Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?

"What luck!" she repeated. "How nice of you to come to my rescue!"

He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form the rescue was to take.

"Oh, almost any--even to sitting on a bench and talking to me. One sits out a cotillion--why not sit out a train? It isn't a bit hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osburgh's conservatory--and some of the women are not a bit uglier." She broke off, laughing, to explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to the Gus Trenors' at Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen train to Rhinebeck. "And there isn't another till half-past five." She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces. "Just two hours to wait. And I don't know what to do with myself. My maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was to go on to Bellomont at one o'clock, and my aunt's house is closed, and I don't know a soul in town." She glanced plaintively about the station. "It is hotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh's, after all. If you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath of air."

He declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure struck him as diverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed Lily Bart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied.

"Shall we go over to Sherry's for a cup of tea?"

She smiled assentingly, and then made a slight grimace. "So many people come up to town on a Monday--one is sure to meet a lot of bores. I'm as old as the hills, of course, and it ought not to make any difference; but if I'm old enough, you're not," she objected gaily. "I'm dying for tea--but isn't there a quieter place?"

He answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her discretions interested him almost as much as her imprudences: he was so sure that both were part of the same carefully-elaborated plan. In judging Miss Bart, he had always made use of the "argument from design."



Continue reading chapter one here.

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BW13: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The 17th novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.  The story was originally published in a three part serial in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899.


One  - 

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions. The Lawyer--the best of old fellows--had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. 

The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.

And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.

Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, "followed the sea" with reverence and affection, that to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled--the great knights-errant of the sea. 

It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests-- and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith-- the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.

The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman light-house, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway--a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.

"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth....

Read the rest online here or here or here.

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BW6: Dante's Inferno

Happy February!   This year marks the 700th Anniversary of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the first cantica of The Divine Comedy.     Inferno is considered one of the great classics in literature and is on Susan Wise Bauer list of Poetry in Well Educated Mind.  I've never read it, so figured now would be the perfect time.  And as long as we are reading Inferno, why not go to Italy. Plus I'll be continuing with my Centuries challenge and exploring the 13th Century this month.  More on Italy and centuries challenge next week. 

Dante was born 1265 in Florence, Italy.    When he was 9, he met and fell in love with Beatrice Portinari who became his muse and central inspiration for all his major poems,  even after her death in 1290.  At the age of 11, he entered into a marriage contract with Gemma Donati and married her in 1285.  Beatrice continued to be his focus  of his poetry as the ideal lady even though she married and eventually died at the age of 24.  Due to his politics, he was exiled from Florence and eventually made his home in Ravenna. Dante died from Malaria at the age of 56 in 1321.

I'll be reading this version of Dante's Inferno translated by Allen Mandalbaum which has the Italian version on the left facing page and the English translation on the opposite right page. 

You can find out more about Dante and read Inferno online here, here or  here.

Join me in reading Dante's Inferno. 

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BW5: Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

The 16th novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. An abbreviated form of the story was first serialized in The Philadelphia Press in December 1894 and so spread to newspapers across America.  The book was published in October 1895.  Stephen Crane was only 23 at the time and did from tuberculosis at the age of 29. 

Chapter 1

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his garment bannerlike. He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold.
"We're goin' t' move t'morrah--sure," he said pompously to a group in the company street. "We're goin' 'way up the river, cut across, an' come around in behint 'em."

To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted. He sat mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint chimneys.

"It's a lie! that's all it is--a thunderin' lie!" said another private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily into his trouser's pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. "I don't believe the derned old army's ever going to move. We're set. I've got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks, and we ain't moved yet."

The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over it.

A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put a costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment. Of late, however, he had been impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general. He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually assailed by questions.

"What's up, Jim?"

"Th'army's goin' t' move."

"Ah, what yeh talkin' about? How yeh know it is?"

"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don't care a hang."

There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied. He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew much excited over it.

There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him.

He lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room. In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture. They were grouped about the fireplace. A picture from an illustrated weekly was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs. Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood. A folded tent was serving as a roof. The sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow shade. A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth......

Continue reading here or here or here. 

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